But you still have to go into the thread to know that it was bad. That's a view. A better mechanism would be a +1/-1 button and a count next to each thread (and it wouldn't be too bad...I'd bet there are far more sane people than trolls here).

@MasterPie: I really don't like one for one voting systems. Perhaps, a reputation based system where some votes are worth more than others, could be more entertaining. On top of that you could have meta points, where the points could be tagged with concepts like "good idea", or "nice use of grammar", or "maybe you ought to rewrite that post."

@cbae: But there are strictly less trolls than there are non-trolls (the coffeehouse would be worse if this weren't true). And there is no system of automatically identifying trolls, because if we did, then our problems would have been solved a long time ago.

@MasterPie: For those that have forgotten... we added a weighted voting system for marking bad content at one point, not exactly what you are talking about, but related. The pages of complaining about how it wasn't fair that certain people's opinion was worth more than others, etc... finally led to me just removing the entire system. We are actually tracking thread views, we just are pushing them from Azure table storage to the database, I'll try to get that onto our priority list for the new year.

@Duncanma: I remember such a button and I think I remember the complaints. But, was it actually in effect during that period?

I really want a youtube-esque upvote/downvote system in which posts that are downvoted above a threshold are automatically hidden (with ability to show). That would prevent threads from derailing into lock-blivion.

I've always thought that a simple "ignore all posts/threads" function (where each member can choose to hide the posts/threads by those posters that they don't wish to view any more) would work at discouraging trolls. No need to have a 'community' value asserted, everyone is free to decide who is/isn't a troll, and set their own personal filter on them. If enough people think the same, the troll will end up shouting into the ether, with no views or responses.

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